REGINALD ON WORRIES
I have (said Reginald) an aunt who worries. She's not
really an aunt—a sort of amateur one, and they aren't
really worries. She is a social success, and has no
domestic tragedies worth speaking of, so she adopts any
decorative sorrows that are going, myself included. In that
way she's the antithesis, or whatever you call it, to those
sweet, uncomplaining women one knows who have seen trouble,
and worn blinkers ever since. Of course, one just loves
them for it, but I must confess they make me uncomfy; they
remind one so of a duck that goes flapping about with forced
cheerfulness long after its head's been cut off. Ducks have
no repose. Now, my aunt has a shade of hair that suits her,
and a cook who quarrels with the other servants, which is
always a hopeful sign, and a conscience that's absentee for
about eleven months of the year, and only turns up at Lent
to annoy her
husband's people, who are considerably Lower
than the angels, so to speak: with all these natural
advantages—she says her particular tint of bronze is a
natural advantage, and there can be no two opinions as to
the advantage—of course she has to send out for her
afflictions, like those restaurants where they haven't got a
licence. The system has this advantage, that you can fit
your unhappinesses in with your other engagements, whereas
real worries have a way of arriving at meal-times, and when
you're dressing, or other solemn moments. I knew a canary
once that had been trying for months and years to hatch out
a family, and every one looked upon it as a blameless
infatuation, like the sale of Delagoa Bay, which would be an
annual loss to the Press agencies if it ever came to pass;
and one day the bird really did bring it off, in the middle
of family prayers. I say the middle, but it was also the
end: you can't go on being thankful for daily bread when you
are wondering what on earth very new canaries expect to be
fed on.
At present she's rather in a Balkan state of mind about
the treatment of the Jews in Roumania. Personally, I think
the Jews
have estimable qualities; they're so kind to their
poor—and to our rich. I daresay in Roumania the cost of
living beyond one's income isn't so great. Over here the
trouble is that so many people who have money to throw about
seem to have such vague ideas where to throw it. That fund,
for instance, to relieve the victims of sudden
disasters—what is a sudden disaster? There's Marion
Mulciber, who
would think she could play bridge, just as
she would think she could ride down a hill on a bicycle; on
that occasion she went to a hospital, now shes gone into a
Sisterhood—lost all she had, you know, and gave the rest
to Heaven. Still, you can't call it a sudden calamity;
that occurred when poor dear Marion was born. The doctors
said at the time that she couldn't live more than a
fortnight, and she's been trying ever since to see if she
could. Women are so opinionated.
And then there's the Education Question—not that I can
see that there's anything to worry about in that direction.
To my mind, education is an absurdly overrated affair. At
least, one never took it very seriously at school, where
everything was done to bring it prominently under one's
notice. Anything
that is worth knowing one practically
teaches oneself, and the rest obtrudes itself sooner or
later. The reason one's elders know so comparatively little
is because they have to unlearn so much that they acquired
by way of education before we were born. Of course I'm a
believer in Nature-study; as I said to Lady Beauwhistle, if
you want a lesson in elaborate artificiality, just watch the
studied unconcern of a Persian cat entering a crowded salon,
and then go and practise it for a fortnight. The
Beauwhistles weren't born in the Purple, you know, but
they're getting there on the instalment system—so much
down, and the rest when you feel like it. They have kind
hearts, and they never forget birthdays. I forget what he
was, something in the City, where the patriotism comes from;
and she—oh, well, her frocks are built in Paris, but she
wears them with a strong English accent. So public-spirited
of her. I think she must have been very strictly brought
up, she's so desperately anxious to do the wrong thing
correctly. Not that it really matters nowadays, as I told
her: I know some perfectly virtuous people who are received
everywhere.